Painting Confusion
by Michi41
Summary: A one-shot featuring Phatie friendship. When Katie is assigned a painting in art class, she doesn't know how to...do it. But luckily, someone is there to help her understand just what she has to do.


**I just love the friendship pairing of Phineas and Katie; they're so cute together! So, I decided to write another one-shot just for them, because really, we don't have enough of them on this site. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Phineas and Ferb is a show that of which I will never own and instead go to Dan and Swampy, the rightful creators of this cartoon.**

* * *

"Can anyone tell me the name of this artist?" Mrs. Darwin asked the second-grade class while clasping her hands together dramatically. Her eyes set upon a seven-year old girl with blond pigtails wrapped in braids, her little hand shooting up into the air. The woman smiled at the sight of her participating, as she did not do it very often and instead seemed to look very confused most of the time. "Katie."

"It's Jackson Pollock," Katie Marquette announced, feeling pleasure over the fact that she had been called on before Django Brown, who was a very good painter himself but didn't think so. The reason why she had known whom the artist that did the painting on screen before the others was because her eight-year old sister Kalen had done a painting by him in the previous school year and had often bragged about how good hers was. As if Katie cared. She was a dancer, not a painter like her sister.

"Very good, Katie," Mrs. Darwin told the girl, who smiled shyly at the attention. "Now, you may be wondering, why did I put this painting on the screen? Well, there is a reason for that." She grinned at her class, who inched their seats closer to hear her better. "Can anyone guess why?"

"Do we have to look up the artist in a reference book and write down any of the facts that are seen inside of it?" Gretchen Petersen eagerly asked the teacher, whose smile faded.

"Um…no," she said in a confused manner to the girl, who frowned slightly. The art teacher then turned hopefully to the rest of the class. "Any other guesses?"

"Are we gonna paint a picture of that?" Phineas Flynn asked her after politely raising his hand. "I love painting pictures!"

"Yes," Mrs. Darwin sighed in relief. "I would like you all to look at this picture, and using the paint, splatter it all over your canvas just like Jackson Pollock did. And," She winked at the class. "Since you have smocks on, you are allowed to get messy."

The second graders all widened their eyes at this. They were allowed to get messy in school? How cool was _that_? Mrs. Darwin must have seen their expressions, because she laughed. "Of course, you have to be careful," she cautioned. "I don't think your moms and dads would be very happy if you came home all messy. That's what the smocks are for." Her expression then grew serious. "Just remember, do _not_ take them off. Do you understand?"

"Yes, teacher," the little kids all chirped, all but one itching to get started. Katie was biting her nails nervously.

"Okay, then," the brunette teacher informed the class. She once again clasped her hands together. "Have fun!"

Almost as if a hurricane had blown in the room and they were taking cover immediately, the second graders scrambled out of their seats and hurried over to their assigned easels. On each was a set of watercolor paints and a few paintbrushes with a small cup of water.

However, unlike the others, Katie slowly got up out of her seat. Her legs felt like jelly as she took her place standing by her easel. Biting her lip, she glanced down at the supplies, and then back up at the paper. She put her finger back in her mouth as she sucked on it and thought hard.

"Hey," the blond heard someone next to her say. She turned to see Phineas, who had been her friend since daycare when they were two. However, since he had become best friends with his stepbrother Ferb and the girl across the street named Isabella Garcia-Shapiro back in preschool, the two had not been as close as they once were.

And Katie still secretly had her small crush on him, which made things all the more harder.

"Is something wrong, Katie?" Phineas wondered, tilting his head in confusion. "You've kind of just been standing there while the rest of us have been painting. Is something the matter?"

Katie just shrugged, doing her best to hide her blush. Not that the redhead would see it. He was the most oblivious person in the world when it came to romance according to Isabella. The blond didn't even know what _oblivious _meant. "Kind of," she replied slowly, shrugging slightly while still sucking on her finger. "I mean…I just don't _get _it."

"Get what?"

"The…" the girl struggled to think of the right word. What was the word her parents used sometimes? Oh yeah. "The concept," she finished, glancing sheepishly at the boy who had once been her closest friend. "How am I supposed to paint this if I don't know what I'm _doing_? Shouldn't I have a plan? Why didn't Mrs. Darwin give us a plan? Why-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Phineas laughed. Wait, why was he _laughing_? "Katie, you've got this all wrong."

Huh? When all Katie did was give the seven-year old a blank stare, he continued. "See, here's the thing with Jackson Pollock," he informed her as he scooched aside so she could see how he had done it. "He didn't _have _a plan whenever he painted. All he did was pick up his paintbrush and _splatter _it."

"Splatter it?" Katie echoed, now more confused than ever.

"Yeah. See?" He gestured his head over to his painting, and she watched as he took his paintbrush, dipped it in some red paint, and kind of just…_threw _the paint onto the canvas. When the girl gasped, he smiled. "See?" he repeated. "That's how you do it."

Katie just blinked at him for a few seconds, but she then realized that she was either going to have to attempt to paint without a plan or go with Phineas's way. Taking a deep breath, she put her brush inside of some blue paint and flicked the paint.

It ended up on the canvas, much to her surprise. "Wow," she breathed, taking in the beauty of the colors contrasting so well against the white of the paper. It was…dare she say it, amazing. And she barely even _did_ anything.

"So just keep on doing that, and you'll get the hang of it," her redheaded friend told her with a smile before going back to his own work.

_Huh_, Katie thought as she dipped her brush in yellow, therefore creating green. _Maybe not having a plan when you paint is better than having a plan, after all._

When she finished, she stepped back to look at the piece and couldn't help but beam at her success. She had actually accomplished a painting, and it was actually good.

But something was still missing. After looking around and assuring herself that no one was watching, she took her very messy brush and etched a triangle shape like the head of a certain someone into the very top corner that no one but herself would ever see.

It would remind her of the time she learned to be free.

* * *

**Eh, it's short, but whatever. What did you guys think? **


End file.
